DH info on the Marauders and Snape was Nitwit Remus John Lupin

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 168139


> wynnleaf:
> <snip>
> 1.  JKR is not writing, nor going to write, "The Exhaustive History 
> of the Marauders and Snape" which covers their day-to-day activities 
> throughout school.  So whatever she actually puts down on the page, 
> that's all we'll have to go by.  No amount of suppositions ("Snape 
> could have been hexing people constantly.  Just because we're not 
> told doesn't mean he wasn't," is no argument at all once the 7th 
> book is published.  It's hardly any argument now.  Because all we 
> have to go on is what we're told.  And if we're given no evidence or 
> hint of a thing, we can't just suppose it to be true.

Neri:
I suspect we need to take into consideration some plot constraints here.

>From the ending of GoF, throughout OotP and up to the ending of HBP,
JKR had invested a lot of effort in selling us Snape as the "good guy
if not a nice guy" type, all ingeniously planned so the tower scene
would come as a greater shock. She certainly managed to convince most
of us (myself included) with this view of Snape. In fact she did such
a great job at it that many fans still remain convinced even after the
end of HBP. One of her most brilliant and effective methods was
planting suggestions that poor Severus was an abused child and
teenager, especially bullied by the Marauders. This was clearly one of
her main objectives in the Worst Memory scene. Therefore anything we
see or conclude from this scene is under suspicion, and should be
taken with a big grain of salt. Several key details in this scene that
initially looked very bad for the Marauders and good for Severus have
already underwent unexpected reversals since then: the jinx that James
had used for humiliating Severus turned out to be a very common
practical joke at the time, used by everyone on everyone, and in fact
started by Severus himself. OTOH the jinx that Severus used on James,
which JKR deliberately downplayed in the original scene (both James,
Sirius and Lily completely ignore the blood on James's face, as if it
doesn't exist!) later turns out to be a potentially lethal Dark curse
– which Severus had invented himself and marked "for enemies". The
Worst Memory pensieve scene is demonstratively the creation of a
master manipulator at work. Believe it at your own risk.

Just ask yourself: when Harry investigates Lupin and Sirius about the
incident in OotP, why doesn't either of them answer him: "look Harry,
I know what you saw looks bad, but you have to take it in context.
What you don't know is that at that time everyone was dangling
everyone else by their feet". Why does Lupin only tell Harry this
interesting fact a year later??? The obvious (in retrospect) answer is
that in OotP it was very important for JKR to create the impression
that Severus was bullied by the Marauders and that this was one-sided.
Only in HBP she's starting to plant counter clues that this wasn't
necessarily like that, so that after the tower we can't blame her of
cheating. 

However, plot constraints are not easy to handle. The big shock of the
tower scene must take place only in the end of HBP. Before that scene
JKR can't reverse the view of good-if-not-nice Snape completely
because it will spoil the big surprise, and after that she isn't left
with enough page time to tidy all the details. So we might still be
stuck with some leftovers from the Poor Bullied Severus story that
weren't taken care of. But this doesn't mean they won't be in DH, when
Lupin has enough time and is finally free to tell us the whole story
the way it really was without JKR limiting him because of plot
considerations. We might find out that when Lily asks "what's he ever
done to you?" she's just being argumentative because she wouldn't
admit her crush on James, and the reason everybody laughs when James
answers "it's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean"
is because everybody knows he's answering ironically instead of
stating the obvious: that our little Dark Arts expert here has been
trying to get us expelled ever since we arrived at this school.  

Of course, I don't expect the Marauders to emerge out of DH as little
saints. They were far from that, and one of them has canonically gone
very bad since. However, I think it is significant that the one who
went bad wasn't the one actively taking place in the Worst Memory
incident. It was the coward, not the bullies. Which suggests to me
that there were some good reasons to be afraid of poor Severus even then.


Neri